A proposed $80 million apartment project in downtown Eugene could mean an increase of $3 million in spending at downtown businesses annually.

If built, the complex would be the biggest downtown redevelopment effort in the city’s history, dwarfing both the $21 million, 170-unit Broadway Place apartments built in the late 1990s and Lane Community College’s ongoing $55 million project of classrooms and housing for 250 students on West 10th Avenue.

Observers say the addition of more than 1,000 college students would pump life into the sleepy area of downtown, which now includes parking lots and the shuttered buildings around the PeaceHealth’s empty Eugene Clinic building.

“This project holds enormous positive potential for our downtown,” said Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce. The Capstone development and LCC projects “will bring students with a surprising amount of purchasing power to our downtown, help create 24/7 activity, build stronger connections to the University of Oregon and LCC campuses, and help us keep the long-awaited momentum going in our downtown.”